Everything Is Fine, Somewhere, Just Not Here
by Fueled By French Fries
Summary: "What kind of heroes are constantly watching you and can take your friends and memories at any time?"
1. Frankly, Very Suspicious WiFi Signals

"I'm going to go out on a limb here and say this wasn't you."

"Well, it isn't. That's kind of why I asked. What's up with it?"

"We might have to be worried about fallout, so I suggest you put the cleaver down."

Penn dropped the meat cleaver as well as a oriole the size of your fist could. The mission had been simple: go to the Middle Ages- except with various birds, and overthrow the evil king. The fact that they had zapped into an asylum proved a slight obstacle, but only a slight one. They might have passed a very pleasant evening, had they not noticed a very strange statue, which was around the time shit got real.

"You think it's radioactive or something?"

"No, I'm saying it might literally fall outward. Physics-defying objects are tricky like that. Is there anything particularly valuable in here?"

"Rippen, this is a castle."

"Great, so nothing. If some chicken so much as bumps it, it could rip the space around it. We'll probably have to blow it up somehow."

"Blow it up? No way, it could take down the whole building."

"It's either a tested, reliable method that involves beforehand evacuation, or a situation that could end in a black hole. Your choice."

The statue sat on its pedestal. Beneath it, there was a bronze plaque, with letters engraved almost too small to see:

 _I Know You're Going To Blow This Thing Up, You Kiddie Pool Bastards, Why Can't You Learn To Leave Well Enough Alone, Some Of Us Are Actually Trying To Protect People Instead Of Fucking Off To The Ends Of The Multiverse For Some Dick Measuring Contest, So Have Fun Destroying An Entire Structure That Probably Took Decades To Build With These Fucking Birds' Fucking Stubby-Ass Wings FOR THE GREATER GOOD, Or Whatever, While We're Over Here Actually Getting Shit Done, Jerks_

 _by Manny Crawford_

"Whoever this is, he can't be from here. Literally everyone here is named something like Eye-Eater or Disemboweler or Corn Chip."

"One of my knights' names is 'You With The Face.'"

"And then this Crawford guy shows up out of nowhere, drops a statue that would impossible to build with wings, and starts throwing around terms like… eh… 'bugger off to the ends of the multiverse.' Like he actually knows what he's talking about."

The horned owl that Rippen was currently inhabiting frowned in disapproval, then frowned some more as Penn started snickering at him. "What?"

"It looks funny when you're mad."

" _HRMMMMPH!_ "

* * *

"So what I'm hearing is 'interdimensional Banksy,'" Boone said.

"I mean, that's what we're going off of."

Penn wrote this on the napkin along with "angry hipster bird?" and "dude, probably." The crumpled napkin had become a notepad for theories and a few jokes, all relating to the elusive statue's creator.

"Whatever he is, he isn't a hero," Sashi pointed out, using her fork to gesture. "He did put what was pretty much a ticking time bomb in the middle of a dimension that doesn't know how to get rid of it on its own."

"Also, he left it in a place that he knew we would go to eventually. He was specifically talking to us. Something's fishy here."

Everyone had a different approach to the matter. Penn saw a potential villain. Sashi saw a potential bomber. Boone didn't think they were ever going to meet the guy in person, so it wouldn't matter.

"Yeah, but what if he's not talking to us?" he pointed out. "The multiverse is big. He could have been calling anyone out. Heroes. Villains. Birds in general? We don't know! All we can do is clean up after him and hope no one gets hurt."

"I still don't like this," Sashi grumbled.

Then the weekend came, and that was all they really needed. Phyllis had gone in and smashed the statue, and brought some of the remains to the Odyssey to keep an eye on them, see if they would try anything funny. Two weeks happened.

* * *

"Hey, Matilda, what's your wifi's name?"

"What?"

"Your wifi! What's it supposed to show up as?"

It was not a pleasant evening. In hindsight, caving and going to a Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons session probably wasn't a great idea. Particularly because his friends had failed to attend, their hostess was running out of paper, and Penn was currently stranded in some stranger's house, tasked with looking up dungeon generators because some assholes had decided to break into an area the DM hadn't planned out. Eighty percent of the conversations were Penn dodging around having to address anyone by names he didn't actually know and pretending to know what he was talking about.

"Uh… 'winternet is coming.'"

"Password?"

Matilda, the girl in the red hoodie who was hosting, and he was pretty sure he had seen at least once before, rattled off a string of numbers and letters that he frantically tried to keep up with. Of course, this ended up being in vain, and it kicked him out.

Feeling like he'd used up all his one free awkward moment passes for the night, he said nothing and scrolled down the list. Winternet is coming. The password is password (it wasn't). Bill wi the science fi. An network that was just another string of letters and numbers.

Now, Penn was somewhat educated on what was an okay thing to do on your phone, and what wasn't, and using someone else's… frankly, very suspicious wifi signal was definitely a not okay thing. But there was this codebreaking app passing around school that he was honestly really curious about, and, uh, YOLO, he guessed. Never mind, he felt stupid just thinking that.

He opened the app, picked the string of characters at random, and waited. And then nearly had a fucking heart attack because apparently the app made this loud, jarring THX noise when you were in. He waved it off, saying it was just his music, and promptly broke into a cold sweat when he turned back to the phone.

 **WELCOME TO DELTANET REMOTE ACCESS NETWORK. PLEASE ENTER COMMAND.**

That was odd. He experimentally typed into the chatbox.

[help]

 **ACCESS: Displays synopsis for a given query. Syntax: ACCESS Query Example: ACCESS Database**

[access database]

Time passed as Penn scrolled through the "DELTANET" database.

 _Those Who Are Nameless: A hero group that believes that a lack of individual identity is sacrosanct, and that having memories of one's life before becoming a hero is a burden. Is allied with at least four reality warpers, including RW-31015. Status: Active. Threat Level: High._

His fingers were getting a little jittery. Somehow he felt he wasn't supposed to be there.

 _Mendoza Labs, Inc.: A scientific research and development corporation based in a parallel Mexico. Notable facts include that their initial interdimensional contact was caused by an accident involving a break room toaster and elemental thermite, and their invention of disintegrator rays in the 1950s was actually a repurposed vibrator design. Status: Active. Threat Level: Minimal._

He couldn't place whether it was truth or science fiction. At some times it seemed fictional, at others

 _Phil/Phyllis: Information about the people or entities that are known as "Phil" and "Phyllis" is limited. Whether they are two individuals or one is ambiguous. All that is known is that they are entities capable of projecting heroes/villains via MUT. Status: Active. Threat Level: High._

he was completely dumbstruck. But the little clock in the corner of the screen said 10:23 PM, and it hit him how late it was.

Penn said his goodbyes and hurried away from Matilda's street. What the hell was going on, this had to be some kind of bizarre dream. Blocks down, improbably, he still had the signal.

He sighed, winded, but still keeping a steady pace. Who were these people, with all this information and no apparent means of getting it? Who thought of Phil and Phyllis as a threat? Why should they be? Why? Why? Why?

His phone buzzed against his leg. He hesitated, then pulled it out. It was from Boone.

 _sorry we couldnt make it r u ok  
_ _dont tell me rippen did something to u  
_ _or larry  
_ _wait not larry  
_ _the hipster bird would be more likely than larry_

 _i'm fine. going home now._

He opened the database back up. Boone had reminded him of something.

[access manny crawford]

 **INCORRECT FORMAT OR UNKNOWN COMMAND.**

[access mcrawford]

 **INCORRECT FORMAT OR UNKNOWN COMMAND.**

[access crawford]

 **IMPRECISE COMMAND. PLEASE SPECIFY WHICH FILE YOU WANT TO ACCESS.**

Mabel Crawford

Manaba Crawford

Marcus Crawford…

[access manaba crawford]

 **Name:** Manaba Crawford  
 **Occupation:** Field Agent  
 **Specialization:** Diplomacy, Specialized Negotiation  
 **Gender:** Female  
 **DOB:** [CLASSIFIED]  
 **FURTHER INFORMATION ON MANABA CRAWFORD IS CLASSIFIED LEVEL 3 OR HIGHER. INSUFFICIENT CLEARANCE.**

Damn it. But there was a file. A file that may not have even been their Manny- how common was the last name "Crawford?" "Manny," though. That could be a decent abbreviation of "Manaba."

And then, with no prompting, the screen jumped, and there was a messaging thread.

 _green231: plz tell me u guys r ok_  
 _mcrawford: We're fine, Hummer's hands are just full and it took a minute for me to open the terminal._

Penn didn't type anything in. He wasn't supposed to see this.

 _green231: k  
_ _green231: wait  
_ _mcrawford: What?  
_ _green231: probably nothing  
_ _green231: just give me a sec to make sure its nothing_

The screen jumped again.

Unable to connect to the internet. The webpage cannot be displayed because your phone isn't connected to the internet.

And then there was a click behind him. Arms reached out and grabbed him, wrestling him bodily to the ground. He screamed and screamed before the the chloroform kicked in.


	2. I'm Like Your Lawyer

There was an empty seat in art class the next day.

* * *

"Do you know why you're here?"

Crawford considered herself a brave person. She couldn't recall a point when she afraid of a lot of things- well, sure, she was probably afraid when her aunt pulled her aside for "little talks" that left her shaking; maybe she was afraid when she realized halfway to Target that she was in no way capable of functioning as a human being, much less as a retail worker. But that was the past, and the past was gone. Since then, she wasn't particularly upset if the deck was stacked against her.

So truth be told, the day she had hopped a fence and soon found herself in a strange, alien dimension, she had probably been afraid, but after the fact, when she was sat down in an office and given her little employment pamphlet full of bullshit, she couldn't recall much of a reaction other than pure happiness. New places, new people. Sure, she imagined to some people things like practically selling your soul and keeping your mouth shut and practicing dubious morals would be frightening, but the agent was not one of those people.

She didn't care if she was good or evil. She didn't know what good or evil was. "Good" was a conception of herself that didn't know what the corners of existence looked like. "Good" her would belong in society. "Good" her was strange and alien, and she was pretty sure she wouldn't like that person.

But there were a few times when she was afraid. Now, for instance.

"...To discuss my misconduct?"

Koko looked over the file folder, smudged eyeliner framing her glare. "Apparently you left an artifact with space-bending properties in a dimension."

Shit, she had been trying to keep that subtle. "Really."

"You can't deflect the blame. Anything to say about that?"

Crawford stared at her gloves. The red had become rough and dark on the outside, but the yarn was still soft on the inside. She didn't like touching some of the things here with her bare hands.

Koko was writing in the file with a blue pen. She always wrote in blue. It suited her.

The wall was yellow. It was always yellow. It offended her, somehow. What a stupid observation.

"Well, the tribune isn't very happy." Koko wasn't, either. She shuffled the papers. "You're not the first, though."

"Pardon?"

"To try pissing the heroes off. That's what you were going for, right? It makes them antsy. The Nameless might see it, and even then, there's a million cells we don't want to mess with." She closed her folder. "Long story short, management wants you off fieldwork and in the archives to do something about the deplorable state of the stacks. We'll miss you on missions." She slid it across the desk.

It then occurred to her why the yellow wall angered her. It didn't match the Initiative. At least she could derive some sense of comfort from the warp floor, because it looked exactly how it should- stark white, cold lights, complicated technology strewn about. In comparison, this office was a godless fuck-palace of lies. With terrible interior design. Who decided these colors looked good together?

"Wow, fuck you."

"Never heard that one before." Koko laughed. Her laugh always sounded like a cat about to throw up.

* * *

Crawford had kept her expression carefully neutral as she sifted through the shelves of paperwork. At the very least she could get some peace and quiet. Good for thinking, she thought as a stray transcript grazed her hand to create the third papercut that hour. She finished off her coffee and crushed the styrofoam cup in her fist.

She wasn't angry, Crawford told herself. She was just making the trash more space efficient.

Halfway to the bin, the door creaked open. Hummer's thin face poked in the door. "Crawford, you speak German, don't you?"

"Just what I've picked up from class and one of Doba's boyfriends, and I don't know how 'wer ist dein papi' could help you. Why do you need to know?"

"That kid Green picked up yesterday is going to wake up soon."

That got Crawford's attention. She got up from her seat on a crushed box and followed Hummer into the hall. "Is he German?"

"He doesn't look like any German I've ever seen. He's not responding yet, but they pulled some anomalous tech off him and put him in a cell."

"Take me to him. Anything's got to be better than paperwork."

Well, not anything, as Crawford would later realize while looking at the file. "He's a hero," she said blankly.

"We're not sure," Green said, placing a stick of Pocky between her teeth, nonchalant. Half her face was bruised. Knowing Green, asking would probably just be a waste of time. "Want one? No? ...Ah, whatever. He hasn't woken up and we need to know how to help him. He doesn't look like Nameless."

Crawford exhaled, then looked up at the door. "Fine, I'll see what I can do."

* * *

Penn is now returning to this story. Damn shame that he is. It would probably be safer for him out of it.

* * *

Penn woke up to panic staring him straight in the face. His lungs felt full of fiberglass, his heart was in his mouth, and- oh god, these weren't his clothes; they'd been replaced with some white, unfamiliar getup. Out, how to get out. Move the bed, try to bash down the do

The bed was bolted down.

The bed was bolted down, there was no door. What was there, however, was something that nobody would want to see on the iron frame of a bed- teeth marks.

Panic had started bashing him over the head as hard as it could when he heard a clanking and a crunching noise behind him. One of the bare sections of white wall had slid aside and let in a boxy-looking agent in a suit and tie. She was eating an apple with one hand, and had a tray of food in another hand with a file folder under an arm, an utterly neutral expression on her face.

There was a desk and two chairs on the opposite side of the cell, also bolted down; she sat in the one closest to the door. She sat there for minutes just slowly eating and reading the file. Eventually, she looked up and said "hey," as if she hadn't noticed he was there.

"...You're… with Rippen?" He wanted to say something about Deltanet, but the words wouldn't come.

"I don't know who they are, but that's a start. So how did you get into our servers?" She said, squinting at the file.

* * *

"Why are you locking it?"

"I lied. He probably doesn't remember it 'cause he was hopped up on methadone, but he woke up before and started swinging at me. Gave me a right impressive shiner. Maybe a lamb to the slaughter might earn a few brownie points."

* * *

"Well, hello to you too."

"You hush, I'm trying to do my job."

"Wait-"

"No, you wait. You can't deflect the blame onto whoever these "Rippen" people are; my partner found the network open on your phone. I need to know what number dimension you're from and what hero cell you're part of."

"Is there a one-way window in here? Were you watching me?"

"Answer the questions."

"Listen, lady, I don't know what kind of hero you are-"

"A- I beg your pardon? I'm a fuckin' respected diplomacy agent around these parts! I am a member in good standing of the ethics division! I bring scones to important meetings and I know they are good because people actually eat them! And look, I am going to do my fucking job and you are going to answer these questions, so I'm asking you again- what are you doing?"

Penn had lifted the metal tray of food and held it above his head as threateningly as he could.

"You've got some nerve to hack into our servers, but I've shot up a lot of heroes, so you listen-"

"No, you listen! Last night I got on a weird network and got kidnapped by… I have no idea? Something with the word 'delta' in it? And yeah, maybe I did see things I wasn't supposed to, but I didn't hack anything! I'm exhausted! There's freaking teeth marks on this bed! And I'm, like, eighty percent sure you've seen me naked! You, a person who looks like someone's mom but sounds tiny, and you're part of the… Illuminati, or whatever! What's going on?"

With the last words, he flung the tray, and the agent swung her head away to keep it from giving her a nasty concussion. "...Maybe I'm going about this wrong." She sighed and squeezed the bridge of her nose. "I'm Agent Crawford. Do you know who you are?"

* * *

Boone was the one who called Penn's aunt and uncle. Sashi called the police.

* * *

"My name is Penn Zero." He had to stare at her until she quit laughing and realized he was being dead serious. "And you're… you did the statue, right? In bird world?"

"You saw my thing?" Her eyes lit up at the mention of her work, then she quickly calmed herself down, but for a split second, she looked her age- hell, she looked human. It was jarring, almost, to see that and then have it go so quickly. "Yeah, um. Almost got me fired, that."

He exhaled deeply, then looked up at this… this thing, this kid who got dragged into this proxy-coated heart of darkness. "Listen, I'll tell you what I know if you… give me even half an answer."

"Jesus, you just made my job infinitely easier. Eh… not infinitely, maybe like, three quarters easier," Manny grumbled, flipping through and scribbling down answers. "Okay. Who the fuck is Rippen, and name some prominent members."

"Uh, my art teacher?"

"...Aaand?"

"That's it. He's one guy."

"Note: subject is either purposefully giving code names or dimension of origin has peculiar naming conventions," she said under her breath.

"Excuse me, they're not that weird! ...Defending myself, here, Rippen doesn't get a pass. Now tell me what an ethics division is and why you need one."

"Whoa, sport, slow your ass down. I'm pretty surprised that you don't know this shit- half of the multiverse does-" A fact that made Penn's eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. "That makes you right suspicious to the strike division, and I'm running low on time, so I'm gonna give you the rundown."

She sighed and put the file folder down. "A strike agent's going to come in here in a few hours, and some shit's gonna go down. Depending on the circumstances, I could… more or less be the first and only line of defense between you and a guy with some power tools. I'm like your lawyer. In a really, really messed up trial."

"Wait, what?"

"I'm sorry, but I am... literally, physically incapable of giving you more answers right now. Some of the shit I just said could get me left on the side of a road in Albuquerque under normal circumstances. I really have to go." She finished off the apple, then took another out of her pocket and tossed it to him. Confused, he put up a hand to catch it, and it bounced off his hand and into his lap.

"And don't eat big meals. Maybe a little bit drawn out over the day, just don't… not eat, or eat everything at once. First thing could put you in hypoglycemic shock, and you would die, and the second thing- I don't know what happens; it's above my clearance level, but I've got a feeling. Everything tastes funny. Everything but the fruit. Think they can't do anything to it."

The wall opened up, and Manny, and Penn's answers, disappeared. Now he just had this apple. What the fuck was he supposed to do with this?


	3. It's All Under Control

"That's weird. You sure he's not just sick or something and forgot to call?"

"No, no. He wasn't at home. His aunt and uncle called the police."

"Oh yeah, he's that kid who tried to run for student president. Don't his parents have issues or something? Are you sure he didn't run away?"

* * *

"Any news?" Sashi said before even sitting down. Day two, still no sign of Penn other than the flyers stapled all over Middleburg. Best case scenario, he Paper Towns'ed himself out of stress- the edge he had been on before his disappearance could have made Rippen's hair look like a circle. Worst case scenario, no one wanted to think about the worst case scenario.

It didn't make the best case any easier to think about, though. Penn wasn't that kind of person, they knew that, and if in some way he was he would have left a note. If he disappeared without a trace, something was wrong, but they couldn't figure out what it was as long as "runaway" was on the tip of everyone's tongues. But on the outside, there was a kid with family problems, hated his teacher, wasn't doing super great in school. Hung out in an abandoned theatre for hours on end.

"Nothing. Last people to see him were Matilda and her gang." Regardless of the scenario, there had been a thick anxiety in the air since the disappearance. Like the atmosphere had turned to pudding, if pudding felt like broken glass when you inhaled it.

No suspects had been found; hell, not much of anything had been found. The police kept saying to not give up hope, that he would turn up eventually. They knew what they meant was that they were waiting for him to return of his own volition, and no one could find much comfort in that.

Boone lowered his voice. "So does Rippen…?"

"Know? No. Unless he did it, but that seems low even for him."

"He seemed out of it. Only way to know for sure is art class, and he wasn't even there Monday."

"...Monday." Penn's last text before being snatched had been Sunday night.

"I mean, what are we going to do? I just don't understand why anyone would want to hurt him." The phone he had sent the text from was found wiped and thrown in a ditch. It had plenty of prints, most of which were Penn's, but there were some odd-looking ones. Whoever they belonged to, it didn't match up to any known criminals. Boone swiped a hand over his eyes.

Yes, no one understood why. Not Rippen, who had been scrutinizing every other seedy looking old man in Matilda's neighborhood. Not the older Zeroes, worried sick as Penn's MUHU's ringing echoed inside a dark storage locker. Not Phyllis, as she poured over every abnormality and outlier in every mission, looking for the shape of the truth by how the lies and cover-ups outlined it.

Penn Zero was not the only thing that had gone missing Sunday night. The comforting blue glow of the crystal and the shattered remains of the offending statue had vanished.

The police didn't know this, and if they did, they probably wouldn't have cared. Even if some glowstick had gone missing, it wasn't like they needed to make it a priority. Who cared about that? Why would you? Why? Why? Why?

* * *

"Why did you steal that glowstick, anyway?"

"It's probably useless, but I just thought it looked neat."

It was a rather late night at Delta Plastics. Though the not-plastics building was home to an organization that never slept, most of its workers did. The staff had either left or were in underground housing. Sure, they had a night shift- God knew where they got so many people to stand in front of doors- but it was a skeleton crew compared to the day.

But tonight was different. In Green's words, some bitch in the dorms wouldn't quit making noise and everyone was kind of sick of it. Crawford wouldn't know- she didn't live in the dorms, but that was another story. Sorting papers had to be better than listening to an accordion cover of Bring Me To Life again. Anything had to be better than listening to an accordion cover of Bring Me To Life at all.

"Your acting is shit, Manny. Shit!" Green said, knocking back a third cup of coffee.

"Really, now? What about that bit with the guard in pasta world? 'Who can resist this macaroni ass?'"

"Yeah, but that was… I don't even know what that was about."

"Your exact words were 'assaroni,' if that brings anything back," Hummer mumbled, sliding another file folder into a box.

"Oh! That didn't even matter, anyway, I ended up blowing the guy to bits. As if I would follow through on hitting on a piece of uncooked farfalle."

"Anyway, just telling me my acting's shit doesn't help me much."

"You rushed out of there too quick, you acted like you're not in control, and I'm pretty sure that hypoglycemic shock is a diabetes thing."

"What's wrong with acting like I'm not in control? I'm not."

"How do I put this… think it makes you more relatable. I get that that's your normal M.O., but you can't do that here. Makes you look like you're just as much a prisoner as he is."

Crawford raised her eyebrows. "That's an issue?"

"It's kind of a stumbling block. You and the system need to look one and the same, otherwise this wouldn't work."

"'This' being helping him or inducing Stockholm syndrome?"

Somehow, no one thought that was very funny.

Green frowned at her file folder, brow furrowed in thought. "What?" Crawford eventually said.

"I found the file on your glowstick. I don't think we're supposed to see this."

"How so?"

Green's pupils dilated and flicked around as she thought. She focused on the small text of the file as hard as she could, trying to make out words. But no matter how hard she tried, it still looked like the file said "CLASSIFIED" over and over. Years of amnestic prescriptions and redaction therapy had made it impossible for her to breach unauthorized information. Even the photo paperclipped to the page looked an awful lot like the Initiative seal. "My filter's kicking in again."

Crawford knew she wasn't supposed to look, but secrets made her bitter. This is what she read.

 **DI Object #:** 1172016  
 **Class:** [CLASSIFIED]  
 **Protocol:** Object is to be secured in a deep storage locker in Contact 17. No security beyond a standard keypad lock is necessary. A room outfitted with monitoring equipment and four-point restraints is recommended for testing on unwilling subjects. Unauthorized physical contact between the object and human blood is forbidden.  
 **Known Information:** Object resembles a glowing blue crystal suspended in air by unknown means. The object's anomalous properties are activated by contact with human blood, causing one of two effects, referred to as Effect A and Effect B, to occur. The effects are still being researched to establish a link.  
Effect A causes the subject's body temperature to rise to 100 ℃, killing the subject. This effect will occur invariably, even if the object comes into contact with blood that has already been drawn from the subject.  
Effect B is currently the only known method of accessing [CLASSIFIED]. Of note is that this effect has never been observed to occur when testing is conducted on Initiative personnel. Of all observed occurrences of Effect B, 3% have been triggered by Mendoza scientists, 21% by Nameless operatives, 67% by members of other hero cells, and 9% by others.  
 **FURTHER INFORMATION ON OBJECT 1172016 IS CLASSIFIED LEVEL 3 OR HIGHER. INSUFFICIENT CLEARANCE.**

"You're kidding me. This is the whole entry."

She looked around and saw she was alone. How long had she been sitting here, reading? They'd probably gotten tired of her and left. Well, things happened.

Crawford ruminated on the file for a bit. After a while of working for the Initiative, she had become used to no one telling her what was going on. Not that it mattered; she would work her way up to finding out anyway. You had to earn the truth, and it was for this reason she bit her lip and bore bureaucracy best she could. The world of discovery wasn't a pretty one, but she wouldn't know what to do without it.

On the other hand, her little stunt with the statue was a setback. There would be months of work to do just to make up for that. All because of overcompensating for a stupid rumor that she was banging a Nameless chick.

If she was right, and that last [CLASSIFIED] was what she thought it was, she couldn't wait months. If she was wrong, the fallout could have been devastating. It could have cost her her job. Or her life. (Not that there was much of a difference.)

Crawford promptly got up and continued filing, giving no indication of her thoughts and of what, of who slithered into them.

 _Am I doing the right thing?_

 ** _You do want to help me, do you not?_**

 _I'm just asking if this is the thing._

 ** _No, it's the One Ring. Yes, it's the thing._**

 _Okay. How am I going to get access your cell?_

 ** _Level 1, full-time guard, deep storage. The guy who remembers what day it is based on the color of his socks. Optimistic. My favorite guard to mess with._**

 _Combat support?_

 ** _Level 2, field execution. The girl who was just in here. I like listening to her talk about your missions. How come you never talk to me about your missions?_**

 _Can't we use someone else? I don't think she'd react very well to seeing you._

 ** _Relax, it's all under control._**

 _...If you say so. For getting access to the thing, I'm thinking Hummer. Also was just in here. They're higher up; don't know the exact number, but could definitely get in. All their projects have yet to bear workable results, they're constantly wrestling with the tribune, they have sympathy towards weirder folk. They understand how I feel about all the hush-hush stuff._

 ** _Interesting choice._**

 _Alright, then I just stick myself with the thing and I'll be ready to go-_

 ** _Not you, you would boil from the inside._**

 _But-_

 ** _You don't see the full picture. The crystal only accepts those with the purest of intentions. Not only is your association with the Initiative a stumbling block, you also have what exactly you're going to be doing in there, which isn't exactly peaches and cream._**

 _Fine, then, who do you have in mind?_

 ** _I have an idea. It could be nothing, but I need to make sure before I shoot it down._**

 _Oh, for fuck's sake, World Eater, at least tell me what you're foreshadowing._

 ** _That hero you were just speaking to._**

 _Pfft. ...You're not kidding? You, of all people, are seriously putting some kiddie pool ginger's goals over ours?_

 ** _Look, there's over half of a chance that he's going to be a match, and I probably wouldn't even have to put my roots through him for him to come with you. And it makes sense that the crystal would let most heroes in- after all, you can't just let anyone waltz into what could be considered one of the most dangerous worlds imaginable._**

 _Valid point,_ and on that note, Crawford broke for lunch. Her teammates would not meet her at the cafeteria that day because they would be too busy aiding in Penn's rescue, and simultaneously traumatizing his friends.


End file.
